The Alliance will host its first series of Strategic Sprint Series as SOLVE2018 (#SOLVE2018). #SOLVE2018 will run parallel to the 2018 Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) in Vienna, Austria. #SOLVE2018 will provide:

A means to leverage the untapped energies and expertise of multi-sectoral actors that gather in Vienna for the 2018 CCPCJ.

An innovative approach to addressing the growing challenges of tech-enabled transnational crime.

A new way for motivated thought leaders, process experts, peacekeepers, and activists attending the 2018 CCPCJ, to significantly further their work in crime prevention and criminal justice in just one week.

This first series will focus on three critical conversations:

Innovative uses of integrated technical and social technologies to counter violent extremism (CVE).

What is #SOLVE2018?

It will be a way small teams of diverse stakeholders will be formed just prior to the CCPCJ and will commit to engaging over the course of the week of the 2018 Crime Commission to devise strategic recommendations. Each will work on one of the three Critical Conversations. Strategic recommendations will be devised through strategy sprints. SOLVE participants will be engaged in the Commission and will commit to strategy sessions throughout the week, including breakfasts and evening thus integrating the benefits of Commission engagement, their discussions throughout, and their time together.

Why Participate?

Why Participate?

Networking: The unique opportunity to connect with and learn from some of the world’s most experienced policy makers, advocates, and activists, including tech and social innovators, disruptors, and in an intimate setting. Being able to connect with peers to exchange experiences and build partnerships and engage on meaningful goals during the CCPCJ as well as fulfill your usual objectives will be unparalleled.

The Agenda: Participants help shape the strategic focus within the three main areas being addressed through #SOLVE2018. The scope and nature of the strategic “product” you and your team develop will be up to your unique expertise, synergies, and commitments.

Be a part of the conversation: There’s power being connected to other people who are active in your line of work yet coming at it from very different places. The working parties will put you face to face with others in an opportunity to envision a way forward that may not yet have been done by anyone.

A Live Experience: Build partnerships and collaborate with your peers in a live setting.

Be inspired: Be empowered and revive your passion in your field of interest, or learn from a synergistic field.

Contribute: Don’t just sit and listen or make presentations to new parties (these are needed too). Use this time to roll up your sleeves and create unprecedented strategies for our fast-changing digital world.

#SOLVE2018 Outcomes

The outcomes will be presented during a closing session on the last day of the CCPCJ. The presentation of the outcomes will be streamed and recorded. These will later be transcribed and circulated to Member States and interested participants of the 2018 CCPCJ. The videos and transcriptions will also be made available to the general public on the Alliance website. #SOLVE2018 participants will also be invited to provide feedback throughout the year in order to capture the impact of #SOLVE2018 on their work.

The Working Parties: Metanets

An ideal MetaNet (the generic name of teams formed to work on global-level strategic solutions) would each include, from 3 – 5 individuals who would represent as many of the following stakeholders:

A UNODC staff person (e.g. on the issue of wildlife, a person from the UNODC branch that deals with wildlife issues)

A representative of a Member State or governmental representative also active in an intergovernmental organization (eg of ICCWC in the case of wildlife issues)

Representative of the policing and/or judiciary communities.

Addressing Disruptive Transnational Actions

The theme of the 2018 CCPCJ centers on cybercrime and the technologies that are disrupting the effectiveness of Member States and their twentieth century organizational structures. The assumption underpinning #SOLVE2018 is that as transnational actors increasingly play a role in war, crime, prevention, and peace, new structures are needed. The UN’s and most Member States’ twentieth-century mature hierarchical structures need updating—or at least augmentation to function in today’s fast-paced changing environment.

Without re-creating the entire system, there are strategic adaptations that can bring the agility into the increasingly overburdened and underfunded UN structures. By forming agile, time-constrained, multi-sectoral teams that do have a mandate to focus on the global interests, beyond the state boundaries that currently limit Member States actions, innovation is possible. Responsible governments and larger humanity should be enabled to benefit from today’s emerging technologies. But work has to be done to ensure this comes to pass.

With this vision, the metanets will work to tap todays emerging technologies and themselves become an innovative social technology. The kind of engagement possible during UN meetings such as the CCPCJ could be groundbreaking, allowing new progress to be made in critical areas such as countering violent extremism (CVE) and the trafficking of wildlife.

FAQs

What is SOLVE2018?

SOLVE2018 is an innovative way to enhance the work of the larger stakeholder community that travels to Vienna each year for the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ). #SOLVE2018 is being organized by the Alliance under the guidance of its international chair, Dr. Karen Judd Smith.

#SOLVE2018 will form multi-stakeholder MetaNets that will operate using a typical agile approach to strategy sprints. Their work will be to devise doable strategies to help unlock the current impasses due to tech-enabled transnational organized crime (TOC). The work will be focused on three main areas in 2018.

One of the 3 Strategy Sprints that will be helod will focus on how to create a more functional partnership platform that enables the engagement of all stakeholders: Member States, relevant technical experts, civil society and NGO, activists, academia and institutes, foundations and funders.

Another will focus on the wildlife trafficking, technological resources, tactical resources, member states representatives. The third will look at the ways that evolving technologies can support the essential work of countering violent extremism (CVE).

What is a "MetaNet"?

Metanets are specialized working parties tasked with developing strategic global-level solutions. They form for very short time periods and are charged with developing strategies that take our metahumanity into consideration (universal human rights, rule of law, planetary and human health, development, and wellbeing) rather than national or organizational interests alone.

Historically the Alliance has furthered crime prevention and criminal justice issues through its working parties. Today, the Alliance is transforming its work on crime prevention and criminal justice in order to leverage emerging technologies. Clearly many criminal elements are early adopters of today’s technologies and this reality is creating massive challenges for our more traditional hierarchical organizations like the UN especially in areas such as transnational organized crime, cybercrime, trafficking, money laundering, terrorism, and violent extremism.

Making more agile and adaptive ways of working on strategic issues available to the UN system is in the larger interests of world peace and security. To this end, the Alliance working parties that will be in place during the 2018 CCPCJ are one way the Alliance is providing digitally enlightened support to the UN system.

What makes metanets unique are 4 main factors:

They are mandated to devise global or metahumanity-level strategies

They integrate digital considerations into the strategies, rather than seeing technology purely as a means of strategy implementation

As time-bound, agile multi-sectoral teams that operate during existing significant gatherings, tapping currently underutilized resources, there are very few financial implications yet the value of what can be generated through this agile process could be significant.

When the UNODC and concerned Member States engage with the other stakeholders by participating in this process and then putting the outcomes to use, the work of the UNODC will be dramatically enhanced.

An ideal MetaNet would each include, from 3 – 5 individuals who would represent as many of the following stakeholders:

A UNODC staff person (e.g. on the issue of wildlife, a person from the UNODC branch that deals with wildlife issues)

A representative of a Member State or governmental representative also active in an intergovernmental organization (eg of ICCWC in the case of wildlife issues)

Representative of the policing and/or judiciary communities.

3 MetaNet Challenges

As cyber becomes an every more complex and sophisticated tool in criminal arsenals, develop partnerships capable of engaging all stakeholders in the work of countering transnational crime is essential. Whether the stakeholders are UN funds and programs, Member States, tech experts, civil society/NGO activists, institutes and academies, IGO representatives, or law enforcement/judicial counterparts, the need to be ways to engage in a timely fashion with all entities. This discussion is intended to explore innovative ways the international community can appropriately and collectively address the massive role cybercrime plays in society today.

Strategize what is needed to create defenses against wildlife trafficking. This will include key elements of cybercrime, life information sharing, community capacity building, etc.

Strategize partnership platforms needed to utilize emerging technologies in the still urgent work of countering transnational violent extremism while engaging essential community actors.

If you are interested in volunteering as a subject matter expert for any of these areas even though you are unable to join #SOLVE2018 in Vienna, sign up here to be a metanet advisor to work with a team via chat/skype/video conference: Metanet Advisor

How are the MetaNets formed for #SOLVE2018?

Prior to the CCPCJ, the Alliance will work to inform key stakeholders about this opportunity and invite interested persons who plan to attend this year’s Crime Commission to consider volunteering to participate. Those interested will need to register.

After registering and agreeing to fully participate, #SOLVE2018 participants will meet for orientation and team formation Sunday afternoon prior to the start of the Crime Commission on May 13 at the Vienna International Center, Vienna, Austria. Participants will need to ensure their travel arrangements are made to accommodate this orientation and a teams formation session. Participants unable to attend the first segment of #SOLVE2018 will lose their place.

Once the metanets have formed, each will create their own schedule for the week consistent with the guidelines provided and taking their own organization’s schedules into account. Meeting space and supplies will be provided.

How do MetaNets work?

What is a Sprint?

In product development, a sprint is a set period of time during which specific work has to be completed and made ready for review. In this case, the product is a strategic recommendation. The time period is the week of the Crime Commission (including Sunday afternoon prior.)

Each sprint begins with a planning meeting and in this case, the orientation and planning meeting will be held Sunday afternoon beginning at 1:00 PM 13th May. During the meeting, the product owner (the person requesting the work, in this case, the Alliance) and the development team (the metanets) agree upon exactly what work will be accomplished during the sprint. The development team has the final say when it comes to determining how much work can realistically be accomplished during the sprint, and the product owner has the final say on what criteria need to be met for the work to be approved and accepted.

Each metanet will have a team facilitator who primarily manages the process, meetings, and communications needed for the metanet to complete its work. During the sprint, each metanet holds daily stand up meetings to discuss progress and brainstorm solutions the each intermediate challenge. Metanet Advisors can be called upon at any time during the sprint to get the necessary insights not available from within the team.

At the end of the sprint, each metanet presents its completed work during the Alliance’s SOLVE2018 closing session on Friday May 18th. A panel of stakeholders convened at the closing session will assess the strategies recommended against the criteria set at the planning meeting.

Can I join a MetaNet team?

Review the requirements and up here if you are interested in participating in #SOLVE2018.

How can I help promote #SOLVE2018?

We will need all the help we can get to inform people about this new initiative. Please use the hashtag “#SOLVE2918” whenever you can on your social media and send people to this event on the Alliance website using this url: http://bit.ly/SOLVE2018.

You can also use the following badges as buttons on your websites or in social media. Just add the bit.ly link to either of these images:

Are MetaNets just committees with a fancy name?

No. Metanets are not ordinary committees or teams in the UN sense. They operate more akin to development teams found in digitally mature environments.

Metanets unique in at least 4 main ways:

They are mandated to devise global or metahumanity-level strategies

They integrate digital considerations into the strategies, rather than seeing technology purely as a means of strategy implementation

As time-bound, agile multi-sectoral teams that operate during existing significant gatherings, tapping currently underutilized resources, there are very few financial implications yet the value of what can be generated through this agile process could be significant.

When the UNODC and concerned Member States engage with the other stakeholders by participating in this process and then putting the outcomes to use, the work of the UNODC will be dramatically enhanced.

As for their make-up, #SOLVE2018 MetaNets would each ideally include, from 3 – 5 individuals who would represent as many of the following stakeholders:

A UNODC staff person (e.g. on the issue of wildlife, a person from the UNODC branch that deals with wildlife issues)

A representative of a Member State or governmental representative also active in an intergovernmental organization (eg of ICCWC in the case of wildlife issues)

Representative of the policing and/or judiciary communities.

Also, in the #SOLVE2018 case, metanets do their work through a sprint which has a particular beginning and end which in this case is 6 days.

What happens after the CCPCJ?

We don’t really know yet… but we expect:

For you to have had a far more enriching CCPCJ.

Through your contribution and engagement, you will be more clear about strategic ways forward and you will have strengthened relationships that will help that happen.

If you set goals for the year as a result of SOLVE2018, then you will have new objectives to follow through on.

The body of people who participate in each CCPCJ will be learning about this process and you will be able to better inform others of the value of this partnership platform.

We can work toward SOLVE2019 and devise something even better for SOLVE2020 during the Crime Congress.

What does the program of work look like for a MetaNet?

We envision most of the productive engagement and “work”will be accomplished during the week. The outcomes are expected to be concise and targeted, so there will not have to be great amounts of written explanation.

1:00 PM Sunday 13th: Orientation and team formation.
This will be fun, informative, and an essential start to an effective week of engagement as Metanets. You will meet your faciliatators who will be there to help make the process smooth.

Mon – Wed: Each team will devise their own schedules, as each one will have a variety of responsibilities and schedules. However, we encourage teams to try to meet for at least two to three one hour blocks to move their process forward. We will have a dedicated room in the VIC for you to leave your white-board/stickies/thinking and planning tools where you can return to them. Then of course, you can eat early breakfast together, lunch or dinner. Or talk into the night! It will be up to you!

Thursday: You will need to be getting to the end of your discussions and deciding who will be the main presenter(s) or how you will present during the SOLVE2018 closing session on Friday (time to be determined by UNODC scheduling.) Feel free to burn the candle late Thursday night!

Friday: Make your presentation and join us for a reception after (assuming we get enough sponsorship between now and then). The presentations will be streamed live and recorded. You will now be ready to leave the 27th CCPCJ having been more than an observer. You will have modeled what can be done and have developed recommendations perhaps even devised an initiative your organizations can contribute toward.

After: The outcomes of SOLVE2018 will be publicly available 24/7 on the website as the presentations.

June 8th: Each team will have submitted their report and we will compile these. Once in a report form, the reports will be distributed to relevant UNODC Offices and all UN Missions as well as to interested ALLIANCE members and NGOs.